A SCANDINAVIAN home furnishings company is in talks to take on Marks & Spencer's doomed flagship Lifestore.

Danish chain Ilva is in negotiations with M&S, with a view to buying its 70,000sq ft store, near the Gateshead MetroCentre.

M&S heralded the £40m site as the future of homewares, when it opened in February last year.

But it turned out to be a costly failure and is due to close at the end of this month.

Its 190 staff will be transferred to traditional M&S stores in Gateshead and Newcastle.

Ilva is Denmark's equivalent to highly successful Swedish group Ikea and plans to open 20 stores across the UK.

The Lifestore homewares business was developed by former Selfridges boss Vittorio Radice and was part of the company's push into a market worth £20bn a year.

Gateshead was chosen for the first store, with further branches planned for prime sites such as the Lakeside shopping complex in Thurrock, Essex.

M&S announced it was closing its first and only Lifestore in July, 169 days after it had opened.

It was shut down as part of a major shake-up of the chain announced by chief executive Stuart Rose, when the company was threatened by a takeover from tycoon Phillip Green.